Category: News stories

The thing that I love about Best Westerns is that they have free Internet, a pool, hot tub and fast breakfast. I got dressed and packed early, had something to eat, got caught up on email and was picked up by Judy from Connaught School at 8:20am. I left my big suitcase at the hotel for later pick up. Judy asked me if the excitement had woken me up. What excitement? I asked. There had been a fire right behind the hotel. Fire trucks, sirens, smoke. I slept through it all.

Connaught School was built in 1912. A big old school, and I was speaking in the gym – not my favourite place. It was a lot of kids too – about 140. But even with the bad acoustics it was fine because the kids were so well-behaved. Lots of good questions. The public librarian popped in to hear my session as well. She was born in Brantford.

Judy took me to Davison School. Another great school with really well behaved students. What is it about Medicine Hat that makes the kids so well behaved? I did two back to back sessions there, one with younger kids and one with the older ones. A student gave me a giant marble. With the younger ones, I did a storytelling of Enough and with the older ones, I read the vomit scene from The Hunger. They asked for more, so I read them the beating up scene from Hope’s War. There had been a number of boys in the older group who had said that they didn’t like reading, so I was glad for the opportunity to read those bits. Boys love them. They gathered around after the readings, wanting to ask more questions. That’s always such a great thing.

Anne Rogers handed me a bagged lunch as I got into her car. It was a feast. An egg salad sandwich (my standby) a salad, cut veggies and dip, a chocolate bar, and yogurt. I had the sandwich in the car. When I got to Webster Niblock, I found out that I had another 20 minutes so I had the yogurt too. Packed up the rest and I am taking it to Edmonton with me.

The two sessions I did at Niblock were both in the music room and, like at Davison, the acoustics were good and the groups weren’t too big – no more than 100 – so I didn’t have to use my microphone. The younger kids came in first and I did a storytelling of Enough and then showed them my medal. They were thrilled. A really nice group of kids. I always talk about my own early reading difficulties and that topic resonated with them.

The older group (5 and 6) were also very well-behaved, yet enthusiastic listeners. I had enough time to read them the vomit scene from The Hunger. Normally I let the kids choose what scene they’ll be hearing, but the two sessions were back to back and the first group took longer to exit because they were all looking at the medal, so the second group had a slightly shorter session. After it was over, kids gathered round to talk to me. Some came in later, and chatted while I packed my things up. Avis invited me to the staff room and they had fresh cut fruit and yummy cookies. Niblock’s teachers obviously love their school and their kids and each other. There was an easy jocularity amongst them. One of the teachers, Jeet, told me about her early life and the lives of her parents. Really interesting stuff. I told her that she needed to write these stories. Several of the teachers took me for dinner after school, and another of the teachers, Pat, also had amazing stories. I encouraged her to write as well. It would be fabulous is Pat and Jeet started a writing club to encourage each other at school. I will be emailing them to see if they are writing.

Dinner was great. It was this Italian place that was packed to the rafters with Medicine Hatters. Thursday is steak and pasta night. Really nice steak. And the steak and pasta is only $7.95. Hard to believe! After dinner, Avis dropped me off at the airport. Took one flight to Calgary and right now I am in the plane to Edmonton. By the time I get in to the hotel it will be about 10pm.

It was actually about 10:25 when I got in to the hotel. The taxi driver didn’t know where the Coast Edmonton East was. Good thing I had my trusty blackberry with its GPS. When I got to the hotel, I checked in and then walked over to a 7-11 around the corner for some nail polish remover. I had been adding a layer of polish each day but it was all now chipped beyond repair. I phoned Helen Lavendar, the storyteller who was driving me around on Friday, on my way back from the 7-11. I didn’t want to wait til I got into my room because it was so late as it was.

Jodi from Sundre Library picked me up after I had a quick breakfast at the Best Western. The Sundre library is lovely. It used to be the elementary school but was renovated into the library. Jodi and Michael couldn’t have been more welcoming. Almost as soon as I got there, a group of grade 3 students arrived. They sat in silence while I did my final set up and I introduced myself and began my session right away. They asked great questions and sat listening attentively beyond the hour allotment.

Michael drove me to Mary Hay’s house in the country and then Mary drove me to Calgary. The roads were quite icy and we had a challenge finding Ecole St. Wilfrid. When we got there, we were ushered into the library, where tables of selected children sat. There was a place marker on a table indicating where I was to sit. I was served delicious homemade lasagna and an ice cream sandwich for dessert. The children who were in the room had been voted in by their classmates as the students who exemplified the virtue of compasssion. After I finished my lunch, I stood and answered their questions.

I got a chance to meet Ginger Mullin in person while at Ecole St. Wilfrid. She came in for lunch with her children. It is so good to put a face to a name. Ginger has done a brilliant job of organizing this week. Everything is going like clockwork. It’s a busy week (just like I requested) but everything is so beautifully organized that it isn’t tiring.

After that, I had two back to back sessions. The first was with grades 1 to 3 and the second was 4 to 6. There were a lot of kids in each group but they were attentive and they asked good questions. After the sessions, the librarian brought me a massive pile of Prisoners in the Promised Land to sign. There must have been more than 40. The staff had purchased some Daughter of War for themselves and I also autographed place name papers. I was then driven to the airport and flew to Medicine Hat. I ended up in yet another 2^nd floor room with no elevator so I asked for help with my luggage. Went to the restaurant across from the parking lot and had bison and Saskatoon berry pie and then came back and had a swim. Am looking forward to my very busy Thursday.

My cousin Janet Forchuk’s grandson Dustin goes to New Sarepta School, and that’s where I started my day. Janet also came to the school to hear my talks. Dustin was in the first group of the day and he sat up close to the front. The library was a really lovely one, with a reading loft off to one side, lots of comfy giant pillows scattered on the ground. I would have loved a reading loft when I was a kid. There were about 140 students in that first group and they were really attentive, asking great questions. At the end of the session, I signed a postcard for each student and gave them out as they walked out of the library. I asked Janet to hold Dustin back because I had something for him. We got some pictures of the three of us and then I gave Dustin the one extra book that I brought for the entire week – a brand new copy of Call Me Aram straight from Hong Kong. He was thrilled. Janet was thrilled as well. Dustin hugged me, then hugged me again. I heard that he carried the book around like a prize for the rest of the day.

The second group was coming in as the last of the first were leaving. These were the young students – k to 3. Again, great kids, very attentive. They all got postcards too. After that session, a teacher of Ukrainian heritage named Michelle came up to me and thanked me for writing my stories. She had set up my book display area and had brought in some lovely Ukrainian artifacts. She told me that she had many family stories from her parents and grandparents. I told her that she needed to write them. I hope she does.

Cheryl took me back to Edmonton and to St. Martin Ukrainian bilingual school. I had been at this school in 2001 so it was neat to be back. Taras Podilsky was a teacher back then and now he is assistant principal. And another teacher I know from one of the other schools – Natalie Harasymiw – is now at this school. So it was wonderful to see both of these friends. I did two sessions at this school and the students were all pretty familiar with my books. I had run out of bookmarks for the day, so gave Taras a small handful to give out as he saw fit. The first group was grades 6 and 7 and many of them brought in their own copies of my books. We talked mostly about Prisoners in the Promised Land, but of course about Enough as well, because this is Holodomor Remembrance week. I didn’t tell them the story because they already knew it. Instead, I told them about what happened to me after the story came out – the hate mail and death threats. But then the good things, with so many organizations buying copies and distributing them to various groups so that people all over would know about this tragedy.

The next group were the younger kids. So I did a storytelling session with Enough, and then did questions and answers.

Audrey, the librarian from Devon, was waiting for me by this time. She took me to her library. It is a beautiful new library. Her library had been in the high school for years and only recently got its own building. She warned me that they were having trouble getting people to get used to coming out to programming at the library. She also told me that she had done a display of my books and all of them were borrowed out. I half expected no one to come to the session, but four children and a handful of adults came. I did a storytelling of Enough and then, because it was such a small group, I invited the kids up to the front to they could go through the various drafts of my books and see how a book it made. They were really quite fascinated with that. It was a unique opportunity for me to spend that amount of detailed time with a small number of children.

The newest employee at the library is Holly, who is also the school bus driver and a gifted storyteller. When she walked into the room, the kids ran up to hug her. She took me to Leduc for dinner and also to catch the Greyhound to Red Deer. It was so nice to eat dinner with Holly. She has a fascinating lifestyle. She’s raised chickens, she’s been a teacher, and now she drives a school bus and works at the library. She took me to the White Spot for dinner and we both had a thai chicken salad and tea. We had quite the challenge finding the Greyhound depot. She got me there four minutes before the bus was supposed to be there. I had visions of taking a taxi to Red Deer but the bus was a bit late and all was well. They wanted to charge $15 extra for my book bag, so I shoved it in my luggage. Holly sat on it and I zipped it up. I still have about 1000 postcards to give out and they take up a lot of room.

It was an uneventful bus ride and I got a taxi within minutes of stepping out to the curb.

As soon as I got into the hotel, I had a quick swim and a soak in the hot tub. Glorious. I’ve rearranged my luggage and hope it will work well tomorrow. I’m not taking a flight or bus tomorrow so I’ve got my books and presentation materials out of my suitcase and in book bags. Forgot to mention. I’m almost finished the one book I brought for reading – Arthur Slade‘s Megiddo’s Shadow (excellent read) so Audrey let me look through the book donations. I took two: a Gail Bowen and a Peter Robinson.